`I HAVE lost a beautiful girl, an excellent social position, and a handsome income,' Mr. Godfrey began; `and
I have submitted to it without a struggle. What can be the motive for such extraordinary conduct as
that? My precious friend, there is no motive.'

`No motive?' I repeated.

`Let me appeal, my dear Miss Clack, to your experience of children,' he went on. `A child pursues a certain
course of conduct. You are greatly struck by it, and you attempt to get at the motive. The dear little
thing is incapable of telling you its motive. You might as well ask the grass why it grows, or the birds
why they sing. Well! in this matter, I am like the dear little thing--like the grass--like the birds. I don't
know why I made a proposal of marriage to Miss Verinder. I don't know why I have shamefully neglected
my dear Ladies. I don't know why I have apostatized from the Mothers'-Small-Clothes. You say to the
child, Why have you been naughty? And the little angel puts its finger into its mouth, and doesn't know.
My case exactly, Miss Clack! I couldn't confess it to anybody else. I feel impelled to confess it to you!'

I began to recover myself. A mental problem was involved here. I am deeply interested in mental problems--
and I am not, it is thought, without some skill in solving them.

`Best of friends, exert your intellect, and help me,' he proceeded. `Tell me--why does a time come when
these matrimonial proceedings of mine begin to look like something done in a dream? Why does it suddenly
occur to me that my true happiness is in helping my dear Ladies, in going my modest round of useful
work, in saying my few earnest words when called on by my Chairman? What do I want with a position?
I have got a position. What do I want with an income? I can pay for my bread and cheese, and my nice
little lodging, and my two coats a year. What do I want with Miss Verinder? She has told me with her
own lips (this, dear lady, is between ourselves) that she loves another man, and that her only idea in
marrying me is to try and put that other man out of her head. What a horrid union is this! Oh, dear me,
what a horrid union is this! Such are my reflections, Miss Clack, on my way to Brighton. I approach
Rachel with the feeling of a criminal who is going to receive his sentence. When I find that she has
changed her mind too--when I hear her propose to break the engagement--I experience (there is no sort
of doubt about it) a most overpowering sense of relief. A month ago I was pressing her rapturously to
my bosom. An hour ago, the happiness of knowing that I shall never press her again, intoxicates me like
strong liquor. The thing seems impossible--the thing can't be. And yet there are the facts, as I had the
honour of stating them when we first sat down together in these two chairs. I have lost a beautiful girl,
an excellent social position, and a handsome income; and I have submitted to it without a struggle. Can
you account for it, dear friend? It's quite beyond me.'

His magnificent head sank on his breast, and he gave up his own mental problem in despair.

I was deeply touched. The case (if I may speak as a spiritual physician) was now quite plain to me. It is
no uncommon event, in the experience of us all, to see the possessors of exalted ability occasionally
humbled to the level of the most poorly gifted people about them. The object, no doubt, in the wise
economy of Providence, is to remind greatness that it is mortal, and that the power which has conferred
it can also take it away. It was now--to my mind--easy to discern one of these salutary humiliations in
the deplorable proceedings on dear Mr. Godfrey's part, of which I had been the unseen witness. And
it was equally easy to recognize the welcome reappearance of his own finer nature in the horror with
which he recoiled from the idea of a marriage with Rachel, and in the charming eagerness which he
showed to return to his Ladies and his Poor.

I put this view before him in a few simple and sisterly words. His joy was beautiful to see. He compared
himself, as I went on, to a lost man emerging from the darkness into the light. When I answered for a
loving reception of him at the Mothers'-Small-Clothes, the grateful heart of our Christian Hero overflowed.
He pressed my hands alternately to his lips. Overwhelmed by the exquisite triumph of having got him
back among us, I let him do what he liked with my hands. I closed my eyes. I felt my head, in an ecstasy
of spiritual self-forgetfulness, sinking on his shoulder. In a moment more I should certainly have swooned